


I could count every star (and none shine brighter than you).

by Amaturewithakeyboard



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anakin Skywalker Needs a Hug, Angst, Character Death, Combat medic Anakin, Depression, Emotional Manipulation, Fluff, Gen, Human Disaster Anakin Skywalker, Hurt/Comfort, Medic!Anakin au, Obi-Wan Kenobi is a Mess, Tatooine Slave Culture, Whump, Young Anakin Skywalker, at first anyway, it all platonic devotion my guys, medical jedi, not even cannon ships, obikin is my brotp ok we need more brotp in this trash heap fandom, there is actually no shipping here guys
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-26
Updated: 2020-03-08
Packaged: 2021-02-28 00:21:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,282
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22914670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amaturewithakeyboard/pseuds/Amaturewithakeyboard
Summary: "Eventually, Mum told him something amazing. The Jedi could heal. With a wave of their hand the sick would become better, scars would fade, and pain would become a thing of the past.Anakin wanted nothing more than that sweet freedom for himself and his mother. Between the visions of red and static, Anakin would know without knowing that Jedi would free them, and that he would also become a Jedi. One day, he wouldn’t have to introduce himself as a person. One day soon, he would be a person."--or, Anakin finds himself wholly incapable in one distinct way- healing. He decides to never be weak like that again.
Relationships: Anakin Skywalker & Ahsoka Tano, Anakin Skywalker & Shmi Skywalker, CT-7567 | Rex & Anakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi & Anakin Skywalker, Padmé Amidala & Anakin Skywalker
Comments: 25
Kudos: 309





	1. I'll never leave you-

It wasn’t out of some base lack of empathy or emotion that Anakin let the animal die.

It was a tinny, scruffy thing. Brown, shabby, and with long, feline ears that tapered downward- it wasn’t much to look at. In fact, looking at it alone made Anakin uncomfortable, what with the long gashes going along its side. With his every step, it seemed to curl further away from him. Anakin had seen that before- in the time before Watto came to be his owner.

He was only 8, Anakin told himself. This was a living creature, not a machine. He couldn’t even begin to think of what to do. Every action he could even begin to associate with fixing the feline began and ended with a spanner, every thought he could process was a failure before it had even formed completion.

Anakin kneeled before it and, with a faint touch, began to give it small strokes in the only place he could avoid an open wound- bellow the chin. He made small, circular movements while he could hear the creatures whistling breath and, when those began to stop, Anakin didn’t remove his hand. He could’ve done more, maybe. It was probably the heat of Tatooine that had killed it in the end, and he hadn’t even tried to save it. No, if it had lived, what would Anakin have done?

He would’ve brough it to Mum. Surely, she would’ve nursed it back to health. And then what? It would’ve been discovered eventually and Watto may have been fine with him building droids- but a pet?

Anakin’s back was sore and his feat bloody. It made his heart twist to even think about the consequences.

So, in the end, Anakin had let it die.

\--------

Before he returned from the outskirts back to Mum, he buried it, carving out a shallow grave with his hands.

\--------

The next day, Anakin worked up the courage to ask his Mum if she knew anything about healing before they had to go to Watto’s. She didn’t.

\--------

Anakin dreams of fire and brimstone, in a land where he can barely breath. He knows without knowing that his body is a careful assortment of scars and his very existence is unnatural. He is poised to move forward, strive against the agony in his body, by a will not his own. He wonders if that will is his new master. He wonders if this is what comes after the slave chip that ensures he makes no attempt to escape his station. He wonders if his destiny lies in fighting for the amusement of the free.

In these dreams Anakin is not himself. Shades of a dull future pass him by, each one less desirable than the last. Grey turns to white then to black and Anakin is surrounded by static. Abnormality colours his vision; Anakin begins to miss the simpler times when he dreamed of Jedi and freedom.

But Anakin is 8 years old and can’t even begin to know what these visions mean.

\--------

Masters often say that those born to slavery have already found their destiny. People like this are defective they say, as they will never know the wonders of what it means to have free will. Slaves are weaker than people, mentally and physically. They are pitiful creatures who need the guide and discipline of a master- no matter how cruel that can seem.

Anakin cannot reconcile this with the image of his mother. Strong and passionate in every way- there’s no way she couldn’t think for herself. He’s seen her, a cut above the rest, ready in a moments notice to take the lead when a master was absent.

But then, Anakin’s mother wasn’t born a slave.

Gradually, he begins to introduce himself as a person. Hi, I’m a person- soon, he’d do it without thinking or even really knowing why. Unfortunately, there are consequences to such actions that Anakin finds he can bare- why was he so afraid to do so for that feline creature?

\--------

Anakin turns 9 two weeks later. Jedi become the dominating authority in his dreams.

Some nights, after asking his mother about them, she’d do more than laugh and tell him to go to bed. Some nights they would lay together with his mother stroking his light hair, Anakin tucked into her side as she pushed herself to sit on the floor, back against solid sandstone. In those nights, he’d look out their window and to the stars, and she’d tell him the most amazing stories. She wouldn’t even blink when he found himself interrupting her by chirping out words like ‘wizard’.

He’d learn all about the glory of the jedi, who protected the weak and free slaves wherever they go. In the eyes of the Jedi, Slaves were people. In their eyes, he was a person, and then Anakin; Tatooine slave boy. They carried lazar swords the colour of oceans and travelled the galaxy to bring peace. Eventually mystic tales of hard battles and a happy ending had turned into the highlight of his week. Not once in these stories did a Jedi lose, not once did their bravery falter.

Eventually, Mum told him something amazing. The Jedi could heal. With a wave of their hand the sick would become better, scars would fade, and pain would become a thing of the past.

Anakin wanted nothing more than that sweet freedom for himself and his mother. Between the visions of red and static, Anakin would know without knowing that Jedi would free them, and that he would also become a Jedi. One day, he wouldn’t have to introduce himself as a person. One day soon, he would _be_ a person.

\--------

There was no one in the world Anakin loved more than his mother. No one.

So of course, it’s only in the first month of him turning 9 that she gets hurt.

He didn’t really know how it happened- just that she’d came back home one day with these long, horrible looking gashes on her lower arm, just before her wrist. Looking at the loose, bloody skin he was reminded of a carcass hung out for draining, yet to be skinned. Or perhaps 3PO, who Anakin had never quite managed to get plating for. But, most of all, it was a revolting reminder of…

Before he even knew what he was doing, Anakin had rushed to his mother, barrelling into her legs and clinging to her smog like he was 6 all over again. In seconds he’d pushed himself back before she’d even opened her mouth. In that moment, every noise twisted into a personal cacophony of terror and his own breathing, sand scrapping stone outside, metal clanging- all at once became deafening. Static.

“Ani- Ani,” Mum began, bringing up her good arm to rub a hand through his hair. Anakin leaned into the touch easily. “It’s ok, I’m fine-” he spoke over her easily.

“Mum, what happened? What- Are you-” He found his eyes welling up and harshly cut off his own spluttering to swallow. “Was it Watto?” He’d never thought Watto was would be that kind of master but, really, he owned them. Anakin waited for the fire to flare up in him, but all he felt was this crushing weight on his chest.

“No, Ani, I’m fine.” She told him, making circular motions on his head. “They’re shallow anyway.”

And yet, Anakin’s heart still twisted.

She led him towards their table and sat him down next to it. “You wanted to learn some healing, right?” Mum whispered, something in her tone stiffer than normal. He nodded, only humming in answer. “Then, I’ll show you how to do stiches.” Again, the stiffness in her voice, the low register it had taken…

“You don’t have to!” he replied sharply. “Not if you don’t really want to- or… or…”

She smiled at him, softening the harsh lines of her face. “I really want to, Ani.” But Anakin always knew when people were lying. Always.

He tried anyway.

While his Mum was smiling at him, he pushed the needle in wrong, though he didn’t quite understand how. Mum tried to hide how much it hurt, but he knew. He saw it in the way her expression closed off and she made a fist in her smog.

“They’re wonderful, Ani, but now let’s see if you can take them out and try it again. How about we use less string this time, too?”

\--------

Anakin pretended not to hear her muffled whimpers later, when she took out his attempt at stiches and remade her own. He’d never found faking sleep so hard.

\--------

The next morning, Mum went straight back to work with him. Watto didn’t give her so much as a second look.

\--------

It was that night that Mum told him about the Jedi again. 3 Jedi venturing to a moon of Legos, defending beautiful angels from evil slavers. For the first time, he enjoyed staring at the stars with her more than her stories. He savoured her hand stroking his head more than the stars.

He couldn’t bring himself to care when the slavers were finally defeated. For some strange reason, it felt too perfect. Jedi felt too perfect.

\--------

The next morning, the skin around her arm was inflamed and raw, even more so than the night before. That day, Watto asked her to stay in the back room in case anyone tried to steal their stock- though it had never happened before. It was out of the sun, at least.

That night, Anakin asked her to tell him the names of stars. Usually, Mum wouldn’t spoil him with two nights in a row, but this time, she didn’t seem to mind. Usually, he wouldn’t even ask two nights in a row. They settled next to the sandstone wall again, Anakin wrapped in his mother’s arms, back to chest. As the night went on, Anakin noticed how truly tired she was, as she began to stutter over the names of stars and repeat herself.

He tried not to notice.

\--------

3 days later, Mum couldn’t manage to get out of bed. Her head was hotter than the desert sand, and she didn’t quite look him in the eyes.

She was curled up near his bed, facing away from him and to sandstone. He could see her injury, even from the foot or so he was away from her bed. Anakin cast a harsh shadow in her room, the only one without windows in their whole little hut. Luckily, that also made it the coolest room.

Her whole arm was red now, the area around the gashes less red and more of an odd off white. It looked…

“Ani… I love you… But-” Her voice was a hollow rasp, almost inaudible in the silence of their home. “You have to… You…”

“Mum- ”

She began to cough, hacking into thin blankets. He couldn’t see her face, only her back shacking. After that, she seemed to lose track of what she wanted to say. He didn’t speak again, and neither did she.

\--------

Watto didn’t ask where Mum was when he went in that day. In fact, some of the only words he said where if he’d be coming in tomorrow. Anakin said he didn’t know when he’d be coming in next. Watto gave him 4 days at most.

\--------

When he gets back home, he stays curled up next to Mum’s bed. For hours, he listens, in the dark, to her laboured breathing. Every few minutes she’d break out into a coughing fit and Anakin- had no idea what to do. He was right back in front of that feline creature again.

“Anakin…” She whispered, and he thought it was one of the only times she’d used anything other than…

He sprang up, leaning over the bed. Still, she was faced away from him. “Ani… You have to- ” She spluttered, the cough sounding wet and disgusting. Anakin began to stroke her hair where she’d let it lose the night before.

“Ani… Get away from his horrible place.” She twisted to look at him for the first time since- Anakin’s breath staggered in his throat. She looked horrible, and nothing like his beautiful mother. No, this woman looked so much older. In fact, she barely even looked human. “And don’t ever… Look back.”

“Mum, what about you? You’re not well enough to travel yet and I-”

She smiled at him but didn’t reply. She didn’t seem to have the strength to.

“I won’t leave you here… I love you.”

It sounded weak and pitiful, even to his own ears. But, surely, they could wait this out. Surely, they could…

Anakin sank to the floor, curling up on his side, and stayed there. He was facing the bed, staring into the mess of scraps underneath it. He didn’t move from his position on the floor, but he moved his hand to stroke her hair anyway.

Anakin sniffled, but didn’t cry.

\--------

When Anakin woke up, it felt like a hole had torn open in his chest and a barrier was left broken and leaking. His whole universe seemed… cold. In fact, Anakin was freezing. “Mum?”

Anakin waited, and waited for an answer. But, at no point did he sit up, or check on his mother. In fact, he stayed there, staring at the parts beneath her bed, repeating himself every now and then with decreasing frequency until finally…

Anakin began to list off the names of the star’s he’d learned and pretended she joined in. Eventually, when he reached the last star he knew, he began to recite some of the stories of Jedi she’d told him. If Anakin tried hard enough, he could almost hear her saying that too.


	2. Chapter 2:Scan for life.

That night, still curled up on the floor of his mother’s room, beside her bed, he dreamt of something… Odd. 

He was shackled, standing stock still, in a putrid room. The smell alone was vile, but… He felt the chains against his wrist, but no matter where he looked, he couldn’t catch sight of them. In fact, he was surrounded by an almost luminescent white, so bright he couldn’t really see anything at all. Anakin tried to shake or rattle the chains, but everything remained in oppressive silence.

“Master?” he called, never before feeling so relieved at the sound of his own voice. He tugged on his chains, but they wedged him tightly in position. He tugged again, but couldn’t hear the rattle of clanging metal. He could hear his own voice but- Anakin knew he was panting, but his own breath was lost to him in the silence between words. _Where are you? Why are-_

He felt his stomach twist in every direction and an abrupt, piercing, high-pitched ring screeched into reality and Anakin was felt the wind rush past his face, his feet falling on nothing and his robes grating on his burnt skin-

Anakin flinched into awareness and was still curled next to his mother’s bed. She was just as still as the night before and Anakin felt a vile compulsion to do something- _don’t ever…Look back_. All Of A Sudden stricken by a memory of the feline creature, he wondered if he was cursed.

\--------

There are two broad categories of slaves: Specialised and General.

Anakin had been a Specialised slave for as long as he could remember- finding his skills in mechanics and flight were generally quite hard to come by after all- not many could build their own droids from scraps or, like he was, make a speeder. However, most slaves were General Purpose Slaves. They had no particular skills and no particular desirable qualities- at least from a sales perspective.

Mum was not a Specialised Slave. Thankfully, with Anakin himself being so young, she had served some use to her masters as more than manual labour- mostly in taking care of Anakin, to protect their mechanical maintenance asset. He wondered, had he been older, how long ago he’d have had to say goodbye to his mother.

Unfortunately, this gave Anakin a close look at the differing standards of living among these two categories.

Being specialised meant you were expensive to replace. Of course, in this sense, money became less of an issue in slave maintenance. It was just cheaper to just get some Antibiotics than it was to buy a whole new slave with a similar skillset. For a General Slave, well, they were a dime a dozen. Medicine was hard to come by and they simply weren’t.

And now, his Mum was…

\--------

Anakin returned to work.

Watto wasn’t human, and often those were the toughest faces to read for him, so Anakin couldn’t quite tell what his master was thinking when he walked into the shop that day. Maybe he was angry, or happy. Either way, Watto’s face contorted into something completely unrecognisable to him. Anakin didn’t ask what it was. In fact, he didn’t say anything, but Watto didn’t really seem to mind.

He was assigned to guard the back room, like his mother had been on her last day in. It was a remarkably humid room, almost nothing like the dry heat of his hut. The air here clung to him like dry blood and, compared to the blistering heat of the outdoors, this place was almost entirely too cold- completely unlike his hut, which always somehow seemed to be a comfortable temperature, despite its natural fluctuations.

It was a room filled with rows of shelves, all bursting with tech, boxes or scraps. Everything was covered in a thin layer of grime, but underneath it all Anakin saw the gleam of new metal. It almost looked like half an old ion engine, just beneath the right corner of the second shelf to the back. But, with the oil dribbled along its surface, it was probably missing a power source- or the missing half would also normally house one.

Anakin half expected that the urge to run to the broken thing would crop up- that perhaps he could take it home for 3PO. But he felt nothing staring at it and couldn’t even bring himself to be surprised- he only vaguely thought back to the scanner he’d been building a while back. The day continued in much the same way, and eventually, Anakin went home for the day.

He slept, once again, next to his mother’s bed.

\--------

The next time he went into work, he’d swipe a spare power source with that half-engine and the very same night, he’d put them to use.

\--------

That night, there was a dreadful sandstorm. As usual, work was cancelled the next day- the market was usually empty after all. So, at the crack of dawn, he hobbled over to Kitster’s place. Kitster lived alone, in the hovel next to his rich master’s place. Like him, Kitster was a specialised slave- specifically in mechanics as well.

It wasn’t too long a walk, being just a bit further away from Watto’s. Even so- it felt like Anakin was walking for an eternity. He didn’t really leave the market area all that much after all, where the sand was compressed and convenient for walking. But now, going in almost the complete opposite direction than usual, the sand was unsteady. Every step was slippery, and he could feel warm sand sinking into the cracks in his shoes. Every thought was punctuated by the horrible desire to turn back and find the nearest working space ready ship and just-

Usually, Anakin loathed the desert. Really, what was there to like? It was a barren wasteland, devoid of life or happiness. Nearly everyone Anakin had ever met was miserable, and those who weren’t were Masters. Even now, as the sun shone daggers into his skin and sand swayed with the distortion of heat, there was simply nothing to love. But, for once, Anakin couldn’t find it in himself to hate.

For once, Anakin felt as though he belonged in this listless place, as much as it was cruel.

Even with sweat beating on his back, and heart pounding in his ears, Anakin found himself dreading his arrival. Every time he skipped over the narrow opening of a cavern or clawed up a dune- something whispered in the back of his mind that _wouldn’t it just be so nice to take a nap? Just for a little while._ But Anakin told himself that would be stupid, and continued onward- and onward, again and again.

\--------

Anakin arrives at mid-day, when the sun was highest in the sky.

It wasn’t all too unusual for him to pop up uninvited, but he still felt guilty taking up Kitster’s time on a rare day off- not that he ever had before. He knocked on Kitster’s door, not quite sure why when before he’d only ever barged in and waited. And waited. And, unfortunately, continued to wait.

 _Go on, knock you coward. Just do it_. But, as always, it was horribly difficult to tell the time in the desert and he was suddenly stricken by the worry of seeming overly clingy. _Why? What’s wrong with you? Just do it!_

Anakin raised his hand to knock once more, but, just before he could, found himself wondering. If Kitster did find him too clingy- what would really happen? Would Kitster be annoyed for a brief moment, and quickly move on? Or would he have become an unwanted burden on his long-time friend- one to be quickly cast aside? - _You have to leave anyway- and never look back- why would it matter when you’ll abandon him soon anyway?-_

The mere notion made him inexplicably angry and, without much thought at all, Anakin lowered his clenched fist and began to stagger back home.

By the time Anakin had gotten back to his little Hut, the blazing anger he’d developed had settled, only to be quickly replaced by this hollow agony he’d never really felt before. He wondered if, had he been born free, his emotions would at least stay consistent.

For the first time in days, he returned to the protocol droid, C3PO. Anakin didn’t turn him on, or give him a tune up, or do much of anything really. Anakin just sat across from 3PO, trying to will into existence the energy to continue building him- maybe, if he finished C3PO, he could just stay here, buy his own freedom, stay with Mum. He spent so long doing this in fact, that he quickly and quietly fell asleep there, hours before sundown.

When he woke up, for the first time in seemingly eternity not by Mum, he didn’t go to see her.

Actually, he very carefully avoided her room and, even the next day before and after work, didn’t check on her or go near her. Anakin pretended to not smell the rising stench in the hut, and, when he left for work and even when he returned, he noticed the way the slaves that also lived near turned their noses up at him and angled their heads away.

He barely resisted the urge to scream at them.

\-------

For the next few nights, Anakin doesn’t dream. Although, maybe this is because he barely sleeps without the comfort of being next to his mother. Yet, he doesn’t even entertain the thought of going to see her. She probably hadn’t moved, and she probably hadn’t even had the thought to wonder where he was.

No, he couldn’t go to see her- it wasn’t finished. Her words still bounced around in his head - _leave this horrible place-_ And he hadn’t. So, Anakin returned to an old project of his. He knew they couldn’t get too far from Watto without removing his chip- their chips- and removing them. After all, despite everything, Anakin didn’t want to become a pile of crispy sand, blown away by the desert wind.

-“ _And don’t ever… Look back._ ”-

So, while he wasn’t at Watto’s, he worked, and worked, and worked.

\--------

Eventually, he finished the scanner.

His chip was hidden a few inches above where his left hip bone jutted out. He didn’t have anything to properly remove it- not even a knife, but he did have some particularly sharp screw drivers- so-

In the dead of night, Anakin went to his mother’s room. He couldn’t really see the walls closest to him, never mind her. For the first time in days, he wanted to run up to her- to hug her, to stroke her hair, or tell her about the stars. But… He didn’t sit down, or go to her, or even stay all that long. In fact, the only thing he did do was stare. She seemed almost like a spectre of his imagination in those dragging moments, and when he left his thoughts seemed to lag behind him.

He ran to the almost-kitchen they had, speeding through it completely and only slowing down to grab 4 things- some thread, a screwdriver, a needle and a small orange crystal Mum had once owned.

\--------

Later- he’d never be able to describe what he felt properly in those seconds before leaving his hut. But, as much as he could put it into words, it was almost like being reborn.

\--------

In the dead of night, Anakin was in the desert. It was freezing now, and he could only be glad it numbed the spot a little bit above his hip bone, where there lay 9 thick, uneven, clumsily sown stitches.

In the dead of the night, where he could almost imagine the dark sky above him to be an ocean and the coarse sand beneath his feet to be the smooth slops of an off-world beach, he gained a shard of freedom.

\--------

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lol there we go! Sorry this took so long, A levels take up so much of my time lol. Idk. Anyway after this all that's left for Tatooine is to get off the fucking thing. Btw while Kitster is a cannon character who does his own thing (at least according to the wiki) i will do my own thing with him (mostly with anakin recalling shit about him or talking about him). 
> 
> Yes i did make Anakin cut out his slave chip and sew up the wound. you gotta do what you gotta do lol. Next chapter we getting some more characters introduced lol.   
> (((Btw why does the notes have up to like 5k character available???? doesn't that seem a bit over board? like i could tell a short story with that lol:/)))


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